Our client:

Nigel Wright is delighted to be retained on an exciting Export Manager position with the highly innovative, pioneering spirits company, Quintessential Brands Group.

Quintessential brands is an independent international spirits business, with an exciting and diverse portfolio of premium brands and world-class production capabilities in the UK, Ireland and France. With a global reach, and brand building capabilities, it distributes and supplies customers around the world. Quintessential Brands Group was established in 2011 with the acquisition of the UK’s foremost gin distillery, G&J Distillers. Since then, the business has grown organically and through strategic acquisitions. They are in over 150 markets, across 4 manufacturing plants, own 13 brands, and manufactures over 5m bottles per month.

The purpose:

To identify, strategically plan & deliver sustainable profitable growth across QB portfolio which is reflected in the QB Internal Budget targets for this region.
Significantly drive the expansion of Germany (No 1 priority) through our distributor & build scale through our core categories.
Grow sustainable profitable sales ensuring complete focus & share of mind on strengthening the Quintessential brands products in the markets.  Hold the distributors 100% accountable for planning & delivering the budgeted P&L across the markets in this region.
Complete leadership for managing all elements of the P&L’s (volume, A&P, Net Sales, Gross Profit, Gross margin & CAMP).
Sustainable growth of Quintessential Brands Strategic portfolio, ensuring that our Distribution, Price positioning, Promotional Plans, products and new innovation initiatives get complete focus from the distributor in order to achieve the budgeted targets. This will enable us to ‘win’ in the Off trade (Priority channel) by growing our share in the categories, market & on shelf.
Manage and lead the Budget, LE & forecasting process for the pre agreed markets & ensure monthly & quarterly reporting is clearly clarified with potential risks & opportunities to the budget. 
Management of the QB Distributor Reporting principles is key, ensuring the Tier 1 & Tier 2 markets are submitting depletions, Stocks, pricing & marketing plans on time & in full each month.
Manage & lead the markets objectives closely via specific & detailed growth plans (Contractual 3 yr & annual Growth plans). That can be tracked by a smart set of KPI’s & reviewed at Quarterly Business reviews.

The job:

• Direct & lead distributors to build market leading brand plans in order to beat the Budget in Volume, Net Sales, Gross Margin & CAMP.  Grow market shares across the categories and achieve distribution goals.
• Drive the Innovation agenda across your region in close cooperation with the Marketing Department.
• Review our Route to Market when the expected results are not being achieved & evaluate and propose new solutions to ensure continuous growth behind our brands in the Gold & Silver markets.
• Conduct quarterly business reviews with each distributor aligned to the EMEA objectives.
• Lead the rapid development and expansion of Germany via our distributor.  Develop Superior relationships with our distributor, On & Off trade customers and key stakeholders in their organisations.  The Regional Director is responsible for highly inspiring, motivating & engaging our distributor teams in order to deliver outperformance.  
• Work with Head of EMEA on a regular basis, providing timely input about the month shipment outlook that will be used for the EMEA Exec & Key market report (along with the key market reports expected)
• Keep abreast of all laws, regulations and policies that govern each market & manage and lead the new contract negotiations for each market.
• Ensure that QB and all local distribution channels operate within the appropriate laws and that any concerns are highlighted in a timely manner.
• Ensure that all external communication (particularly media) is appropriate and cleared though QB’s Communications team in London & Dublin
• Visit key accounts in the markets and monitor the presence of our brands ensuring our price positioning, shelf space and promotional plans are growing and working.  Give feedback & be proactive with the findings to deliver growth & commercial efficiencies.

The profile:

Experience & Knowledge

• Experience in Off trade sales, distributor management, sales, marketing, trade marketing and distribution of beverage alcohol / FMCG and a strong track record of delivering sustainable profitable brand growth.
• Experience & proven track record of leading brands into growth through a clear-thinking commercial / consumer strategy.
• Commercial experience in negotiation, contract negotiation, forecasting and achieving monthly, quarterly and annual results through close management of a full P&L.
• Strong Off trade experience from an FMCG business
• Excellent interpersonal skills and awareness
• Ability to operate across different cultures
• Strong ability to influence and move in the desired direction
• Strong team player and team builder
• Feels comfortable with change
• Innovation mentality: products, formats, ways of working, promotions and partners
• Highly results-orientated, Proactive Self starter & ability to work alone.
• Ability to work in a high pressurised sales environment.
• Pragmatic
• Flexible and positive ‘can do’ approach to work
• Strong drive and desire to succeed, with high levels of energy and ambition
• Proactively asks for feedback and reacts to it

• Commercial experience and negotiating skills, dealing with multiple contracts and close liaison with key distributors.
• Solid ability to interpret, analyse and deliver business management information (P&L, finance, market information, Category data etc).
• Strong ability to motivate, build and maintain excellent relationships with internal and external distributors / key customers and other divisions such as Finance, production, Supply Chain, Marketing & legal.
• Shows evidence of strategic short, medium & long term thinking, global business view and being able to think outside the box in challenging situations.
• Ability to spot consumer / trade emerging trends & challenge the norm.
• Able to think of alternative solutions when complications appear and capable of building intervention plans to overcome the problems and still hit the targets.
• Makes things happen fast, leading the process and the different people / departments that need to be involved both externally and internally.
• Excellent communication skills, including a high level of English & German (Spoken & written).
• Knowledge of the market’s dynamics and laws governing the spirits industry.
• Valid driver’s licence
• Passport & regular travel
• High standard in Microsoft packages (Outlook, Power point, Word & Excel)
• Power point presentation building & execution.